Blogs

This website has a new design and layout.  I hope you like it.

This update has been well overdue, but I finally found the time to do it.

The website has a lot of information, such as the comments and suggestions people have made to the images from the films.

Moving this amount of data between websites is normally a difficult job, that can cost a lot of money.  Luckily I am a professional website developer, so I just needed to find the time to do it.

Now that the website is much easier to update I will (and already have) been updating it more frequently.

Thanks for visiting.

I have created some new websites.

• Digital Frame Reviewer - compares and reviews digital photo and picture frames. Included are all of the popular makes and models. This website gets and compares the prices from all of the major suppliers, so that you can easily choose the best digital picture frames, and buy from the cheapest supplier.

I have just returned from a 7 month trip through India, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. I have created a travel blog about my trip, with lots of photos and daily blogs.

Many of the photographs were taken by Abby. She specialises in travel photography tips, and works freelance. Her passion is for portraits and people, but also loves landscapes and just about anything that can be captured on film or memory card.

I thought I'd mention that I have a new website about my travels in my camper van. It has lots of information including how to build your own camper van. The information mainly comes from a 9 month trip I took through France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. There is also information about VW camper vans and hiring a camper van.

On the trip I did climb the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and took a photo of the statue which Ron Fricke shoots in Chronos. I also took photos of Stonehenge in England, and Mon-St-Michel in France. Obviously my photographs don't compare the moving images in the film, but I'll show them anyway.

Stonehenge from Chronos

My Photograph

Notre Dame from Chronos

My photograph

And Mont St Michel from Chronos

and my photograph

This is great website about the best web hosts. All of the leading web hosts are compared so that you can find the best one for your website. The reviews and feature comparisons are particularly good.

There are pages for the best php hosting, best wordpress hosting and the best drupal hosting.

I have registered some new domains, with which to make directories.
 

• Pro Travel Directory - travel listings
• Business Directory - business listings
• Blog Directory - blogging directory
• Ascend Directory and Ascend Directory UK

Lucky People Centre International is available on DVD from Amazon.de
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000EQ4420/ref=nosim/spiritofbar04-21/

The quality is great, however the film has permanent German subtitles, which cannot turned off. This is a shame. It would have been much better to add the subtitles using the subtitle feature, rather than overlaying them over the film.

I saw Baraka on a big screen at Falmouth University media centre. Luke Laszczak emailed me a few days ago letting me know about the showing. Tash and I went down and watched the film. It was the first time I had seen Baraka on a big screen. Luke and Neil, the head of the film society, are keen to show more films, and I hope to be involved.

I am trying to find Lucky People Centre International on DVD or VHS. I like the film which is a montage of clips of cultures, peoples and civilisations from around the world. It's very underground, but I like it a lot. I have contacted the official website and the person listed as the UK distributer, but I've had no reply. If you should know how I can get a copy please let me know.

I have completed the page for the film Fascinating Nature by Gogol Lobmayr. It's a great film. More of a nonverbal landscape documentary, and less spiritual or moving than the other films featured on the site. I have added image for the film, which are beautiful.

The website has had a black colour scheme since it was first created. This is because the images from the films look better on a black background. However for some time I have wondered if the black puts people off? I think it probably does. After reading this article on the BBC web site I am tempted to change the colour scheme.
Ultimately I want this site as a Drupal powered site. Drupal is a CMS that I have used to create other websites. It is very powerful and allows many features such as forums and polls to be used with very little configuration. I had decided recently to not make any more functionality or structure changes to this web site, instead I would move to Drupal. However I may now change the colour scheme.

I have received a rental DVD of Man With a Movie Camera. This film uses techniques found in the nonverbal films, but this film was made in 1929. I will take a look and give more details in the blog.

I have a copy of Rivers and Tides by Andy Goldworthy & Thomas Riedelsheimer. This film has landscape images, but seems to have a plot and actors. I'll take a better look and post info here.

I have received a rental DVD of Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana. This film has good images of desert landscapes, and is some 10 years older than Koyaanisqatsi. The content is limited though, and does contain dialog. I will take a more in depth look and write more on this blog.

I was not enjoying the black design of the web site anymore so I have created a new fresher look. I have removed some old film logos, and changes just about all of the colours. I have improved the slide show by adding thumbnails for the next and previous image buttons. I've also changed the colours of the forums and the blog to match.

I was surprised and delighted to notice that Winged Migration was shown on British television on 27th December 2005. It was shown on a satellite or digital channel (UKTV History I think). Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi have been shown in the past, but only on a few occasions. I am British and live in Cornwall in England. Until recently we have had only a limited choice of TV channels. The introduction of satellite and digital channels has generated many new channels, which are able to show more underground films such as Winged Migration.

I noticed it was on, but was watching television with my house mate. I switched to the channel whilst checking what was on the other channels. I didn't expect my house mate to be very interested in the film. But whilst I was checking the schedules on the other channels my house mate explained 'that filming is crazy' referring to a shot of the camera actually flying amongst the birds, in a near impossible fashion. I explained that the film was one on this website. We watched the film until the end. That was a bit of a treat for me. All of my close friends know about my passion for these films, and most have seen Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi, as these are the most accessible. However only a few friends, who are keen fans of the genre (Al and Tash), have seen the others. Most people would find watching the more specialist films, such as Winged Migration strange.

Hopefully these films will be shown more on television, allowing more people to view them. Winged Migration is a great film.

You may be interested in the process that allows me to extract the images from the films.

I have worked for many years in the IT industry, primarily as a computer programmer. My skills allowed me to write an application that extracts the images from a DVD. I set the period at which images are extracted (for example, one image every 100 frames) and these images are written to my computers disk.

I then spend a long time choosing which images to use. Once I have done this I create thumbnail versions of each of the images. I also optimise the full size images to ensure the smallest amount of bandwidth is used. This web site uses a lot of bandwidth, mainly because of the high number of high quality images used. I think these images are an integral part of the website, and the effort and cost are worth it.

The use of these images is not officially permitted. I have unofficial permission from the publishers of Baraka. But I am on very good terms with them and believe I could easily get official permission. I use the images from the films in the hope that I will not be asked to remove them, as this website promotes the films.

I have decided to keep a blog of the progress of the Spirit of Baraka website.
My passion for this website has grown constantly, just like my passion for the films. Over the last few months I have added lots of new films and other content to the Spirit of Baraka web site. This blog will serve as a series of notes explaining how the site is progressing.

I watched the extras on the Koyaanisqatsi DVD last night. I have decided to add information from these extras as articles on the web site. I believe people will find this information very interesting. It will help to add extra information about each film.

Godfrey Reggio's comments about Ron Fricke and Philip Glass being essential to the creation of Koyaanisqatsi are very interesting. I knew Ron Fricke provided much of the cinematography for Koyaanisqatsi, but it seems that Ron Fricke contributed more than I had thought.